It’s that time of year again! Whether you take a break for the summer or homeschool year round, everyone likes a fresh start. This is the time of year for new pencils, clean notebooks, and freshly organized bookshelves. The authors here at The Curriculum Choice want to help you get organized by sharing our homeschool rooms and organizational ideas for everything ‘homeschool.’ Enjoy!
Barb:
Making Room for Creativity-Project time and Space: “There comes a time when your children are old enough that you can let them loose among the art supplies. You no longer need to worry so much about them spilling paints or that they will be using the markers on the walls. They can have access to scissors, glitter, glue, and clay without restrictions.”
Keeping Your Art Supplies At The Ready: “One big factor in keeping our art times regular is to have our supplies organized. If you start a project and can’t find the materials needed, you will spend too much time hunting down the illusive paint brush or the perfect kind of paper. Here is how we solved the organization problem in our family.”
Cindy:
Weekly Lesson Notebooks: “I have a newly organized planning notebook for myself and both of the big kids have their own weekly binder. Besides organization, the binders are going to help the kiddos work towards more work independence and responsibility. I’m so excited about these!”
Tricia:
Homeschool Learning Centers at Hodgepodge – Creating learning centers is a bit of a passion for me. It’s an ongoing room by room makeover to meet the needs of our homeschool, our children. I share all this so you might take one thing for inspiration. One rearrangement that might work.
Homeschool Books on the Mantel – when the library books for our studies overflowed the library cubby – there was the mantel, right above. I gave myself permission to use the family room mantle to feature our current reading. Why not? It’s right there in the middle of everything. And it’s pretty besides. A sampling of summer reading…
Our IKEA and Chalkboard Homeschool Room – tour our school room with a chalkboard desk, maps as window treatments and IKEA baskets as storage.
Heather:
Organizing Your Homeschool Library– tips on how to maximize space and organize your books so you can find them.
School Cabinet {Supply Central}– a look at our large cabinet along with the supplies we keep inside!
Essential Elements of a Home Learning Environment– Come see the key features of any home learning space.
Project Workspaces– a tour of our family’s project workspaces. You don’t want to miss how we carve out space to pour into our work.
Kendra:
Staying Organized – tips for everything from a dedicated learning area, book pins, mom’s planner, morning table/tub, backpacks, mamma’s bookshelf, curriculum, books, lunch/menu, mom’s file box and preparing ahead. “That’s it! If it sounds like a lot, I promise it isn’t. Most of it is a “one time set up” situation and it’s off and running. In fact, the only thing that’s a weekly upkeep is my Planning Ahead area. However, it’s a quick thing because everything else in our learning area is working for us instead of against us!”
Stephanie:
Homeschooling in Small Spaces– “I am a military spouse. And things change for me rapidly. I have had 15 homes in 17 years and 11 “homeschool rooms” in 12+ years of homeschooling. That’s a lot a change. So I have had about every way of setting up a homeschool room. Since our oldest daughter just moved back home and we have a small home, I am in the process of downsizing from a homeschool room to a homeschool area. So I will share with you some of the things I feel are essential for my homeschool and how I worked them into my main living area with out it taking over.”
Using a Homeschool Incentive/Reward System– ” Getting started for me, is all about beginning a method, especially since things change at a rapid pace for us. Bringing normalcy and routine are essential. Our Homeschool Reward System has really been working for us, reinforcing the good we accomplish. ”
10 Years of Homeschooling in a Box– After 10 + years of homeschooling how much should be kept? “Many moms create portfolios for each year which is also a wonderful way to demonstrate work done. But at this point I would have 18 portfolios! Yikes! That is too much for me to haul around from move to move. I still have 2 prized journals and and 2 amazing art portfolios, one for each older child now grown, which I will always treasure…. but that is all. And I ended up with one box file containing a folder for each child which represents the last five or six years of their schooling– a folder for each year. This was a huge accomplishment for me. ”
Heidi:
Our Home Schoolroom – We converted our formal dining room into a schoolroom without spending a ton of money using items we had on hand and a little DIY. I prioritized having our necessary items at hand and well organized, and also giving each of my children their own work and storage spaces.
Jen:
Our School Room – We don’t technically do school in this room, we use the kitchen table and the couch, but I do like having a dedicated area to corral all of our materials. It helps to keep us more organized and a wee bit more efficient.
Home Education Notebook – It’s a homeschooling notebook for mom! My hope is that this will easily grow and change with our needs. So far it has worked better than I could have hoped and has helped the day go a bit smoother.
Review Team Features
- Our Homeschool Organization Pinterest board.
- Our Curriculum Choice Pinterest boards! reviews of all kinds from our archives and more.
- Have you enjoyed this special post from our review authors? Our Curriculum Choice review team features a topic monthly. You can see all that our authors have shared on electives, math, curriculum choices and more under Review Team Features.
Check out all the inspiration at iHomeschool Network’s Not Back to School Blog Hop
What is YOUR best homeschool room tip or organizational tool?
~hosted by Amy, Living and Learning at Home
Amy Maze is a homemaker, mother to two little children, child of God, and a blogger. She loves to learn, plan, and create. When she is not teaching her children or spending time with her husband, you will find her blogging at Living and Learning at Home and Classical Copywork.
This was a great basket of ideas! Thanks for sharing them.
We have purchased furniture, bulletin and white boards for just a few dollars at the school district’s surplus sale. We also live in a capital city, so we have a state surplus warehouse that offers educators 50% already cheap prices in August. They have everything from bulletin boards, bookshelves, and desks to 3-ring notebooks, file folders, and organizational supplies. It’s been a huge blessing for us starting out!
Great organizing tips.
The best way is by having a vision that it can be done and by working with your own personality. The hardest part is starting up, but as time goes on, you’ll learn and get used to the things that needs to be done.
Anne Gregor